PE/VC investments worth USD 3.5 bn in Jan 2018: Report

Private equity/venture capital investments worth USD 3.5 billion were announced in January this year, led by big ticket transactions, says an EY report.

According to EY’s private equity monthly deal tracker, January recorded almost double the value of investments witnessed during same month last year (USD 3.5 billion in January 2018 as against USD 1.2 billion in January 2017).

Large value deals (over USD 100 million) continued to dominate the activity with the financial services sector leading the way, the report said.

Moreover, January also recorded 26 exits worth USD 970 million.

“After a relatively quiet December 2017, PE activity has picked up again in January, with both investments and exits growing by more than a third compared to the previous month,” said Vivek Soni, Partner and Leader for Private Equity Advisory.

Soni further said the trend of larger and more complex deals continues with five investments greater than USD 100 million being announced in the first month of 2018 itself compared to 56 such deals in 2017.

From sector point of view, financial services, led the activity in January this year as well, with USD 2 billion invested across eight deals. 2017 was a record year for financial services with investments worth USD 7.1 billion.

There were five deals of value greater than USD 100 million, aggregating USD 2.8 billion and accounting for 79 per cent of total investments made in January 2018.

The largest investment in January 2018 was of USD 1.7 billion into HDFC Ltd by GIC, KKR and others.

The report further noted that January recorded USD 970 million in exits, up 10 per cent from same month last year and 42 per cent higher compared to the previous month.

In terms of volume, there were 26 exits in January 2018 compared to 15 in January last year and 22 in December 2017. While exits via open markets were highest in terms of number of deals (15 deals), exits via sale to strategic buyers were highest in terms of value (USD 439 million).